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A panel on nuclear disarmament

Details:

Sponsored by the K=1 Project, Columbia Scholars Program, and the Columbia Science Review.

Panelists:

Dr. Richard Garwin received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016, as well as the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for the fields of science and engineering, award year 2002. Among other things, Garwin was the author of the actual design used in the first hydrogen bomb (code-named Mike) in 1952. He was assigned the job by Edward Teller, with the instructions that he was to make it as conservative a design as possible in order to prove the concept was feasible (as such, the Mike device was not intended to be a deployable weapon design, with tons of cryogenic equipment required for its use).

Dr. Randy Rydell is Senior Political Affairs Officer in the Office of Ms. Angela Kane, the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. He served from January 2005 to June 2006 as Senior Counselor and Report Director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (Blix Commission) and Senior Fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. He joined the UN secretariat in 1998, where has served as an adviser to Under-Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala and his successors, Ambassadors Nobuyasu Abe and Nobuaki Tanaka.

Zachary 'Zach' Alexander Weinersmith is the author and illustrator of the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC), currently residing in Alabama. He is the writer of two other webcomics, the completed Captain Excelsior with artist Chris Jones, and Snowflakes, co-written by James Ashby and also illustrated by Jones. He also founded the sketch comedy group SMBC Theater with James Ashby and Marty Weiner in 2009. Weiner has been involved in writing and drawing comics since his high school years, but he premiered on the internet in around 2000. Weiner's webcomic was recognized in 2006, and 2007 with the Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for Outstanding Single Panel Comic, and received nominations in 2003, and 2008.